The present invention relates to a combination comprising as components (a) at least one 3-(3-dimethylamino-1-ethyl-2-methyl-propyl)-phenol compound, and (b) at least one N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist (NMDA-antagonist), a pharmaceutical formulation and a dosage form comprising said combination as well as a method of treating pain, e.g. inflammatory pain or neuropathic pain, wherein components (a) and (b) are administered simultaneously or sequentially to a mammal, whereby component (a) may be administered before or after component (b) and whereby components (a) or (b) are administered to the mammal either via the same or a different pathway of administration.
The treatment of chronic and acute pain conditions is extremely important in medicine. There is currently a worldwide demand for additional, not exclusively opioid-based, but highly effective pain treatment. The urgent need for action for patient-oriented and purposeful treatment of pain conditions, this being taken to mean the successful and satisfactory treatment of pain for the patient, is documented in the large number of scientific papers that have recently appeared in the field of applied analgesics and fundamental research work on nociception.
Even if the analgesics that are currently used for treating pain, for example opioids, NA- and 5HT-reuptake inhibitors, NSAIDS and COX inhibitors, are analgesically effective, side effects nevertheless sometimes occur. Sometimes substance combinations comprising two different drugs show super-additive therapeutic effects upon administration. Due to such a super-additive effect the overall dose and accordingly the risk of undesired side effects can be reduced. Examples of combinations comprising 3-(3-dimethylamino-1-ethyl-2-methyl-propyl)-phenol are disclosed in US 2009/099138 (=WO 2007/128412), US 2007/254960 (=WO 2007/128413) and US 2010/190752 (=WO 2010/025931).